Battle of the Bike Lanes : The Extended Version

Matthew Shaer writes a very long and detailed account of the battle of the bike Lanes in New York City for New York Magazine, noting that the city is Not Quite Copenhagen. He writes:

And so it has come to this: Bike lanes, not so long ago a symbol of a boldly progressive New York City, have sparked a bitter row on the hushed and leafy streets of brownstone Brooklyn--just one part of a biking backlash rippling across the five boroughs.

It gets worse.

New York's bikers have been called renegades, menaces, and high-speed killers; opponents of bike lanes have been called troglodytes desperately clinging to an antiquated notion of city life. ("Oppose bike lanes," one Republican city lawmaker tells me, "and you get these people screaming that you're not fully evolved. That you're part of the 'old thinking.' ") The bike-lane wars have become front-page fodder, grist for the international press--the Prospect Park West bike path, a Guardian blog recently opined, could "affect the future of cycling worldwide"--and even a catalyst for an internecine spat between New Yorker writers John Cassidy and Hendrik Hertzberg. (Cassidy: "If global warming disappeared tomorrow, the bike lobby would still ­demand more bike lanes." Hertzberg: "And I would be onboard with that, a hundred percent!")